“What we can’t do is surrender the growth we’ve been seeing with the EU and the growth we’ve been seeing globally, driven by EU trade agreements – so it’s vital, among other things, we have trade agreements to replace those that we are going to lose.”

Andrew Neil claimed the figures did not match those released by the Scottish Government

Given time to regain his dignity after the grilling, Mr Hosie continued: “The point I’m making is that we cannot surrender trade growth and access to EU and global markets by abandoning the EU trade treaty until others are put in place.”

The latest statics show Scotland exported £49.8bn to the rest of the UK in 2015 – an increase of £2.1bn on the previous year.

Meanwhile, exports to the EU grew at a slower pace, with and increase of £520m to a total of £12.3bn in the same period.

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Fri, December 9, 2016

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Nicola Sturgeon visits Glaxo Smith Kline.

Mr Hosie was also lambasted over recent claims by the SNP’s Joannna Cherry who suggested Scotland was England’s largest export destination.

Jumping to her defence, he said: “That was in the context of the European Union. She was absolutely right. It’s the biggest export market in the EU.”

Losing his patients, Mr Neil was once again forced to interrupt: “Excuse me I did that interview, she said quite plainly that Scotland was England’s biggest export market.

“It was just the EU, and Alex Salmond said on Radio 4 ‘Scotland is England’s biggest export market’ – it’s not true!”